Antitrust suit by US vs. Google likely soon
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department plans to bring an antitrust case against Google as soon as this month, after Attorney General William Barr overruled career lawyers who said they needed more time to build a strong case against one of the world’s wealthiest, most formidable technology companies, according to five people briefed on internal department conversations.
Justice Department officials told lawyers involved in the antitrust inquiry into Alphabet, the parent company of Google and Youtube, to wrap up their work by the end of September, according to three of the people. Most of the 40-odd lawyers who had been working on the investigation opposed the deadline. Some said they would not sign the complaint, and several of them left the case this summer.
Some argued this summer in a memo that ran hundreds of pages that they could bring a strong case but needed more time, according to people who described the document. Disagreement persisted among the team over how broad the complaint should be and what Google could do to resolve the problems the government uncovered. The lawyers viewed the deadline as arbitrary.
While there were disagreements about tactics, career lawyers also expressed concerns that Barr wanted to announce the case in September to take credit for action against a powerful tech company under the Trump administration.
Barr felt that the department had moved too slowly and that the deadline was not unreasonable, according to a senior Justice Department official.
Barr is a former telecom industry executive who argued an antitrust matter before the Supreme Court, and he has shown a deep interest in the Google investigation. He has requested regular briefings on the department’s case, taking thick binders of information about it on trips and vacations and returning with ideas and notes.
When Barr imposed a deadline on the investigation, some lawyers feared that the move was in keeping with his willingness to override the recommendations of career lawyers in cases that are of keen interest to President Donald Trump, who has accused Google of bias against him.
The Google case also could give Trump and Barr an election-season achievement on an issue that both Democrats and Republicans see as a major problem: the influence of the biggest tech companies over consumers and the possibility that their business practices have stifled new competitors and hobbled legacy industries such as telecom and media.
Through Youtube, Google search, Google Maps and a suite of online advertising products, consumers interact with the company nearly every time they search for information, watch a video, hail a ride, order delivery in an app, or see an ad online. Alphabet then improves its products based on the information it gleans from every user interaction, making its technology even more dominant.
For nearly a year, dozens of Justice Department lawyers and other staff members worked in two groups, each overseeing a separate line of inquiry: Google’s dominance in search, and its control over many aspects of the ecosystem for online advertising.
Google controls about 90% of web searches globally, and rivals have complained that the company extended its dominance by making its search and browsing tools defaults on phones with its Android operating system. Google also captures about one-third of every dollar spent on online advertising, and its ad tools are used to supply and auction ads that appear across the internet.
A coalition of 50 states and territories support antitrust action against Google.